Contents

Beginning

Established by Samuel Bowles (II) in 1824 as a rural weekly, it
was converted into a daily in 1844 by Samuel Bowles (III). From
the beginning it had a focus on local news. As rapidly as possible
its news-gathering was extended until within a few years its
columns contained departments of items from every town and hamlet
along the Connecticut Valley, as well as from Springfield. It
achieved national renown in the nineteenth century under the tenure
of Samuel Bowles (III), a legacy that was passed to his son, Samuel
Bowles (IV).

Politics

In 1855, Bowles (II) called for the founding of a new party that
would abolish slavery. He suggested the name "Republican." Once
abolitionists founded a party by this name, The Republican became
one if its most unrelenting supporters.

Bowles (III) believed that the newspaper should be a power in
the moral, religious, and literary, as well as the political life
of the community, and he tried to make his paper fulfill those
functions. With the aid of J. G. Holland and
others who joined the staff the paper attained excellent literary
quality and a high moral tone. Its opinions soon reached all New England, and after
the formation of the Republican party they extended far beyond the
limits of any section.

Other

During Bowles' lifetime, and subsequently, the
Republican office was a sort of school for young
journalists, especially in the matter of pungency and conciseness
of style, one of his maxims being: "put it all in the first
paragraph".

Bowles was an acquaintance of Emily Dickinson, and he published a
handful of the very few poems by the poet printed in her lifetime,
including "A narrow fellow in the grass" and "Safe in their
alabaster chambers."

Bowles was succeeded as publisher and editor-in-chief of the
Republican by his son Samuel Bowles (b. 1851).

The pronoun "Ms." was first suggested by an anonymous 1901
letter to The Republican. The letter read, in part, "To call a
maiden Mrs. is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the
inferior title Miss. Yet it is not always easy to know the facts...
The abbreviation 'Ms.' is simple, it is easy to write, and the
person concerned can translate it properly according to the
circumstances."[1]

The second half of the 20th century saw the consolidation of
Springfield's newspapers. The Republican became part of
two other local papers. The Springfield Daily News and the
Morning Union merged in the 1970s, briefly operating as
separate papers, even endorsing different candidates for the same
offices. Eventually the two editions were combined into The
Union-News (a morning paper) in 1988, with The Sunday
Republican being published on Sundays. An organization called
the Springfield Newspapers became the local division of the
Newhouse family empire. The newspaper was formerly known as The
Springfield Union News & Sunday Republican.

The newspaper reverted to its historical, pre-Union-News name of
The Republican around 2001.

Today

The paper closed after a long strike in 1947 but restarted
circulation in the 1960s. Wayne E. Phaneuf is currently the
executive editor of the paper. Former executive editor Larry
McDermott is currently the newspaper's publisher.

''Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' (1921) - §19. Samuel Bowles"The Springfield Republican". XXI. Newspapers, 17751860. Vol. 16. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 190721